Justice Mbuh

International Law and Conflicts: Resolving Border and Sovereignty Disputes in Africa Justice Mbuh

Like his first book Inside Contemporary Cameroun Politics (Authorhouse, 2004, unpublished), Justice M. Mbuh once again draws the attention of readers and researchers on the abuse of human rights and international law that accompany political manipulations in international organizations, especially in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as nations fight or attempt making peace with one another via Courts. The author is perhaps the first to draw our attention from his MA Thesis to this now refurbished work to the riches and delicate political balance that exist in the African Sub-region known as Gulf of Guinea. Moving from general to specific conflict investigation and analyses-from Kashmir, Palestine through the Temple of Preah Vihear to Thirteen African Conflicts or Hotspots (including the Bakassi Peninsula Border Dispute between Cameroun and Nigeria), the author draws a delicate balance between the said conflict and the domestic economic and political realities of the two lead belligerents. Underlying his assumptions and analyses, is his unquenching ability to defend the right to self-determination of all peoples. He once again dares to uphold the fact that the dispute is first a question of understanding the frictional relationship between the myth of the "Two Cameroons"-Ambazonia (Southern Cameroons) and Cameroun, before that of the sovereignty over the swampy, oil-rich peninsula. Above all, the author takes the reader through well defined stages of escalation and dispute resolution, as far as the particular core case study is concerned, while at the same time revealing how vital evidence was suppressed at the ICJ.